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The Chronicles of the First Flame
Book I "Fire Speaker" Prologue Alizan Droh arrives at a village in Arktorah, having been told through his divination that something of great significance was about to transpire there. Sure enough, while speaking with the locals, his conversation is interrupted by a commotion at the other end of the settlement. On the edge of the forest, a hunting party returns, and one man bears the mark of a warlock - the black circle of Oblivion. The Order of Ennead meets at sacred ground - Cerissaeth, the Island of Magic. Here they discuss the disturbing signs received by Alizan and various other magi which hint at the re-emergence of several powerful warlocks - followers of Oblivion the Annihilator. With the absence of the military Light Bringers, the world looks to be in dire threat. Arc 1 A magus of evocation demonstrates the unholy power of a minor demon and divulges the essence of its nature to Seth's class of students. Inside a sealed glass eradicates multiple insects and then ruthlessly attempts to escape its imprisonment. Arc 2 Maya travels up the mountainside to speak with the Guardian of the Valley, reputed to be a figure of great oracular power and strength. She is led to the cave entrances by soldiers who then pass custody of her over to the cyclopes which dwell within the mountain. She ascends their spiralling tunnels and observes cave paintings depicting mythologies she was taught in her schooling. Maya arrives at the top of the great peak, and is bidden by the huldre guides to enter a gigantic cavern overlooking the northern seas. Inside the cave, she meets the Guardian, who turns out to be a verethran dragon of great age named Ohrmazd. She is told of her selection by the magi of Cerissaeth, who have a special purpose for her and her destiny. Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Arc 5 Archmage Samael greets Seth into his personal study and the two talk about the nature of reality, magic and the planets beyond their own. Arc 6 Arc 7 Arc 8 Epilogue Book II "Oath Breaker" Prologue Arc 1 Arc 2 Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Arc 5 Arc 6 Arc 7 Arc 8 Epilogue Book III "Shadow King" Prologue A meeting of witches of the Circle of the Moon takes place in the forests at the border between Arktorah and Urchano, and they discuss the crisis currently at hand. The Moon glows red overhead as Alizan and numerous other high-ranking witches plan out how to protect the lands of Araia. Benniszth the Blackened and subordinate warlocks declare the Jhoshan Empire dead within the overrun city of Delekosk, and offer the humans within death or subservience under Mikhalinn's banner. Most of them, corrupt and brutal after the long totalitarian reign of Emperor Jhosh, agree and assist in the slaughter of those who retain a spine of integrity. Arc 1 Arc 2 Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Arc 5 Arc 6 Arc 7 Arc 8 Epilogue Book IV "Cricket's Calling" Prologue Arc 1 Tira travels with Marvyn eastwards towards the city of Lypter, where she will be safe from her brutal father's tyranny. However, they are accosted by Vendrik Slate and his enforcers, and Marvyn is killed after Slate recognises Tira's facial resemblance to her mother and flies into a psychotic rage. Tira however escapes into the woods, evading capture. Tira travels through the woods, being forced to stop as night renders the trees too dark to press on further south. During the night she suffers nightmares about Marvyn's mutilated face and sees a single cricket observing her as she awakens in a cold sweat. Seeing that dawn is near, she moves on. Tira arrives at the Nordic village of Skognhem, just north of the Troxian Mountains, and although shunned by the locals, she is befriended by Amundi Halvard, a hunter and trapper who is about to travel south to his home village. He agrees to take her with him as she decides to seek her original family on the Frozen Ocean. Arc 2 Tira and Amundi travel through the Troxan Mountains. Thinking they're being followed, Amundi leaves a carcass on the trail and they make camp atop a ledge overhead. During the night, an enormous chatan takes the carcass and then leaves their trail. The two share more about themselves. When Tira stares into the fire, it briefly flashes electric blue, and Amundi warns that she treads a dangerous path. Tira and Amundi travel out of the mountains and head towards an old Jhoshan-era fortification. They see green lights across the old battlefields, and Amundi tells Tira of the demons that haunt sites of great tragedy on the hunt for souls. The pair wait out the Long Nights within the garrison, before heading further south. Arriving at Amundi's village, Ornskirk, Tira learns how to fight in the village square, and learns more of the Nordic people and their history of slavery at the hands of the Jhoshans under the Emperor's rule. She learns that only the cruellest and most tenacious slavers still dared travel south after the Scourge of Shadows. Leaving the village, she travels onwards to the Frozen Ocean. Arc 3 Tira injures herself and is soon stalked by a pack of winter wolves. Just before they tear her apart, she falls through thin ice into caverns tens of feet below. Regaining consciousness, she is led through the networks of ice passages by crawling streams of crickets that seem to appear from nowhere. They lead her to the dead skeleton of a dorogar, half buried in ice. She finds a steel shortsword which feels warm to the touch. Exiting the subterranean world, Tira continues onwards despite her numerous injuries, hoping against hope to reach a settlement before the wolves find her again. However, the animals to catch up to her, and sure that she is about to be devoured, she takes a last brave stand, raising the sword to defend herself. To her astonishment it bursts into flame and drives the wolves away in a panic. Figures loom out of the snowstorm as she loses consciousness. Arc 4 Tira awakens in a shelter on the edge of the Frozen Ocean, being tended to by her grandfather, Torvik Yura. Reunited, she is told how hunters found her and brought her back to the village before death found her. She asks about her mother but is shushed back to rest. Tira learns the ways of life of her mother's people and is taught the language of spirits by her grandfather, the tribe's shaman and wise-man. He teaches her of the dorogar who fashioned the sword she holds and of the fire spirits that are bound to it. Interregnum Arc 5 Over two cycles have passed and Tira still hasn't gotten an answer out of her grandfather about what happened the day her mother was stolen from him. Plucking up the courage to ask, she finally finds the answers she seeks. Her tearful mentor tells of the night their village was caught off guard by brutal slavers led by a man with cold grey eyes... who was referred to by his men as Vendrick Slate. Tira sits at night alone by the communal fire-pit, filled with rage at the crimes committed against those close to her by Slate. Hungering for vengeance upon him, she becomes aware of the cricket's chorus yet again, this time deafening, although she appears to be the only one to hear it. The dying embers burst into roaring blue flames and a great spirit rises from them, claiming to be an envoy of Flamberge. The ettin tells her to embrace her destiny to exact revenge and right the wrongs done by this cruel man. She agrees. Arc 6 Arc 7 Arc 8 Epilogue Book V "Angel Slayer" Prologue Arc 1 Arc 2 Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Arc 5 Arc 6 Arc 7 Arc 8 Epilogue Book VI "Gloom Seeker" Prologue Arc 1 Arc 2 Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Arc 5 Arc 6 Arc 7 Chittel discovers the Oblivion text within a blackened and ruined It'Ept temple, and along with it he recovers Seth Mastiphal's personal affects, which lie on the floor before it. Arc 8 Tira enters the hidden chamber beneath the temple of the Threefold Cross to discover Akoman, alone, enacting the terrible ritual for his transmogrification into a flesh angel. Interrupting the ceremony, Akoman's form is horribly disfigured by the disruption, his body assuming a part-man, part fly abomination. The two avatars do battle and Tira slays the bishop at last. Epilogue Book VII "Sloping Altars" Prologue A child is born in noble House Venzor within Tolnor. It is a stormy and harsh night, and when the child is born, and opens its eyes, the parents scream. Arc 1 Vaekosa prepares to accompany her tribe to the seventh Conclave of High Night, where jyhad is declared. Cinder hides as her village is destroyed by a koschei and its draugr minions searching for the Flame Bearer. Dogarn trains with his fellow soldiers within the steel tower of Gazabarad, making ready for war. Vaekosa attends the Conclave and war is declared against the humans of Tolnor by Pastraea Vokunda. Vaekosa fights in a fierce battle against a human battalion and her brother falls from cliffs to his death. Arc 2 Vaekosa is captured after separation from her kin but saved from molestation by Captain Cade Venzor. Vaekosa and Cade arrive at Tolnor and she is taken prisoner against Cade's will, harshly treated. Vaekosa overhears a talfar agent and a couple of Tolnorian noblemen discussing a plot against the King. Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Necromancers amass at the salt marshes of Daakas, where they raise the bodies of countless dead from the mud as their undying army. Villages on the swamp's edge are oblivious as the hordes of shambling draugr emerge from the darkness and approach their homes. Arc 5 Arc 6 Arc 7 Vaekosa overhears that Reclaimer Nazlaieqk is coordinating with another warlock beneath Tolnor's Palace. Cinder Dogarn Vaekosa flees on wolfback to the northern plateau where Patraea Vokunda marshals kiasyd forces. After attempting to reason with him, she cannot sway his conviction and instead casts him to his death. Vaekosa rides at top speed back to Tolnor, so she might warn Cade of the threat from within. Arc 8 Vaekosa and Cade appeal the court of King Saam himself, and he sanctions an immediate investigation of the city's sewer tunnels beneath the palace. Vaekosa and Cade join Tolnorian royal soldiers in their assault on the Oblivion Cult within the city's sewers. As Alizan and Vaekosa dispatch the cultists, Cade battles with the monster he called sister, a black and vile soul inhabiting Kelsi's innocent young body. She refers to the "prison they built for us soon falling" before she is shoved to her death down a sharp drop, spreading black blood about her. Cinder witnesses the vampire attack upon the ogre moot and buries Vaeliang under a rockslide. God-Emperor Hob decides to declare the Burning Crusade. Epilogue Cinder and her ogre allies arrive at Tolnor and confirm the accounts of a great black dragon reported in the south. They report that the monster told of dark armies growing in the south. Book VIII "Flame Bearer" Prologue Tira infiltrates the Cavern-Vaults of Mireport and communicates House Aiataar's treachery to the ogumo. On the hills beneath Mikhul Delvin, outside of the ruins of Delekosk, a koschei general watches its minions file out on the plains below. Suddenly its introspection is interrupted by the emergence of an even more dreadful presence. Benniszth orders the march north to Araia, and as the koschei departs, turns to Raknos and congratulating him on the plague of Sandoria, instructs him to finish the Bridge City and complete his work. Arc 1 Vaekosa masquerades as a member of the Tribe of Midnight Hands, and requests an audience with Mere-Phre Aiataar during which she demands to gain access to her personal holdings in the Cavern-Vaults. Dogarn observes the front lines of the dorogar army march forth from the steel tower, and prepares to leave with his superiors. Vaekosa corners Mere-Phre and interrogates him about House Aiataar's designs. He confesses that they have indebted all major cities of the world and plan to collapse them, before he is devoured by an ogumo spider. Arc 2 Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum Arc 5 Arc 6 Arc 7 The Battle for Seraphis: Drakon Maianos' army of morbi, sirrushes and zimbwis is led against the sacred city's walls by numerous dawon generals, and Vaekosa joins battle with them on the walls. As the evil army breaks into the city, Vaekosa fights in the streets before fleeing up a tower to escape the ravening hordes. Before she can be slaughtered something grabs her and flies off to a high plateau. Arc 8 Dropped alone on top of a mountain, Vaekosa faces off against the warlock Drakon Maianos, a manticore who snatched her so that he might torment her at will for her meddling in his plans. After a fierce battle, Vaekosa uses a talisman granted her by the princess of Seraphis to cripple and blind Drakon Maianos. As he reels in pain, he dares her to finish him but she won't. Angels do instead. Cinder is attacked and almost murdered by Elias, who unbeknown-st to her or anyone else had become possessed by the spirit of Akoman which resided within his signet ring. The fiendish priest of Asmodeus seeks to claim the Flame Aeon and consign it to the fallen angel so that he might still ascend. At the last moment the head of the corrupt paladin is cut off from behind. Dogarn emerges from the woodlands north of the Troxian Mountains and spies the figures struggling in the marsh beyond. Running towards them, he sees that one is a girl with bright red hair and the other a mutated beast of inhuman aspect. Unhesitatingly, he strikes the head from the monster's shoulders. Cinder and he resolve to journey to the Tomb of Saints together and end the reign of darkness. Epilogue Maya Shatayu witnesses the dragon Kharkaroth take flight from the Red Mountain, heading for Yisildragg. Book IX "Light Bringer" Prologue Kharkaroth attacks the Tree of Life and Death, seeking existential vengeance for its thwarted greed. Aashkule, high oracle of the Temple at the Centre of the World, sacrifices himself to kill the beast. Vaekosa sets off from Tamaluk, heading for the orc homeland of Urchano. The solfar's armies cannot reach the west in time for the assault on Tolnor, but the orcs, if they can be persuaded to leave their sacred ancestral lands, could carry the day for the Jewel of the North. Arc 1 Arc 2 Arc 3 Arc 4 Interregnum The army of undead advances north into Araia, and "recruits" a town of commoners. The Flayer's animated skins scale the walls and peel the guards residing there from their own, much to the glee of the necromancer. Arc 5 Arc 6 Cinder and Dogarn gain passage to the Tomb of Saints's Seal, and she watches in amazement as the Aeon of Flame emerges from her body as glowing red orb and enters its allocated niche in the Beacon of Belenos at the Seal's centre. The Seal opens and the pair enter the hallowed vaults beyond. Vaekosa entreats the orc elders to send reinforcements to the humans of Tolnor, but they are initially reticent to help. When she grows angry at them for their indifference, they give her a prism crystal to look through. When she does, she sees a golden-white aura of near-blinding intensity radiating forth from them. They tell her that action in the physical world is not always the best option, and that their daily rites maintain the integrity of the world as well. If they leave for war, it will be sacrificed. Dogarn walks alongside Cinder through the underground vaults beneath the mountains of northern Andar, wondering at the splendour of the cave system. Eventually after walking for what seemed like an infinity, they come to the chamber housing the gilded sarcophagi of the Light-Bringers. The lichs rise from their resting places and address the pair of them telepathically, telling them of what is to come. Arc 7 Vaekosa arrives at the Battle for Araia before its beginning: The Tolnorian human forces, white magi and ogres are joined by her orcish allies and hope glimmers in their eyes for the first time in cycles. Arc 8 Vaekosa observes the battlefield as the kiasyd and goblin armies arrive from the north-west, led by Nazlaieqk and the fight begins between them, the humans and the orcs. Soon after, the undead legions of the necromancers arrive from the south, engaging the ogres and the magi. Their ranks swelled with the dead of countless villages, the undead are endless and all seems lost. Cinder is taken to the bowels of Mikhul Delvin where she is presented to Mikhalinn, who transports the both of them to the mountain's peak and grants her visions of the battles in the north and the slaughter in the south.Cinder engages in debate with the Oblivion avatar, presenting the knowledge provided her by the nine Aeons of Ennead, which protect her from his harm, surrounding her with a flaming nimbus against his shadow. Dogarn defeats Benniszth the Blackened within the icy cold throne room of Emet Suliath, sacrificing himself in the process. The warlock run through the heart but Dogarn's left arm severed, he collapses to the floor and bleeds out slowly as the warlock dissolves into a pool of corrosive blackness. Mikhalinn attacks Cinder in a rage when he cannot answer her questions and seeks to annihilate her in darkness. A battle of wills ensues and the Aeons protect her, but the warlock's hatred is all-consuming and she knows she cannot hold for long. Just as her resolve dims and the darkness closes in, she closes her eyes. Suddenly, there is a terrible scream of fury and the shadows relent as Mikhalinn dissipates before her. Vaekosa sees the portals from which the demons are emerging begin to collapse, and the enormous voivodes wink out of existence. The tide of the battle is turned and the kiasyd retreat into the woods as the goblins flee in terror. The undead hordes collapse as the controlling necromancers are taken down because of the kiasyd's retreat. Nazlaieqk and his fanatics, however, refuse to back down and fight to the last until death or capture. Dogarn communes in death with the Primordial Stone, Niitoh, and is placed as a ghost alongside Tira as she treats with Hob and the dorogar generals. He confirms (the deity speaking through him) that the Prophecy has been fulfilled and the dorogar drop to their knees in submission, Hob included. His ghost then returned to his body, Dogarn awakens, the severed stump of his arm sealed. He limps out of the forsaken castle. Epilogue Nazlaieqk is consigned to the mirror in Urchano as Mintah looks on alongside Aashkule's ghost. Vaekosa and Dogarn negotiate peace terms between the northern and southern worlds. Stevahl and Maya rest within the Temple of the First Flame,